Introduction
The United States foster care system is designed to protect children from abuse and neglect by providing temporary, safe, and nurturing environments. However, research and practice evidence reveal that many children—particularly Black and Brown youth—experience harm in foster care due to cultural incompetence among foster parents and providers. This lack of cultural understanding can lead to repeated placement disruptions, identity confusion, emotional trauma, and long-term social and academic instability (Price et al., 2008; Johnson & Ramirez, 2019).
Our House is a proposed group home based in Chesapeake and Norfolk, Virginia, that will address this critical injustice by creating a safe, culturally competent, and inclusive environment for children in foster care. Grounded in social work values of dignity and worth of a person, integrity, social justice, and the importance of human relationships, this program seeks to model human rights–based, equitable, and sustainable child welfare practice.
Our house promotes human rights and social justice, integrates macro, mezzo, micro level social work practice by using evidence-based strategies to improved placement stability and child well being.
Task
- Examine the exponents of Our house: culturally affirming care, location, staffing, NTDC training and funding strategies.
- Analyze the proposal for Our House, a culturally competent group home based in Chesapeake and Norfolk, Virginia and how it promotes human rights and social justice.
- Evaluate how the program upholds the values of the NASW Code of Ethics — including dignity and worth of a person, integrity, social justice, and the importance of human relationships.
- Critically assess the literature supporting cultural competence in foster care.
- Develop recommendations for expanding the Our House model nationwide.
- Create a visual map or table linking program components to practice levels and social justice outcomes.
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Our House has the potential to serve as a transformative model for child welfare policy reform across the United States. By centering human rights, cultural affirmation, and trauma-responsive care, the program demonstrates how group homes can shift away from punitive, survival-based environments and move toward settings that restore dignity, belonging, and stability for Black and Brown youth disproportionately harmed by traditional foster care systems. The integration of the National Training and Development Curriculum (NTDC) reinforces a practice standard that prioritizes healing, cultural identity development, and equitable treatment—elements that many current child welfare systems neglect. As a result, Our House provides empirical and practice-based evidence for states seeking alternatives to high-turnover foster care placements, re-traumatizing group homes, and racially biased decision-making.
Nationally, the program could influence long-term policy by showcasing the effectiveness of culturally grounded staffing models, community partnership integration, and diversified funding streams such as government allocations and grants. If replicated, Our House could inform federal guidelines on workforce development, training mandates, placement stability, and family reunification practices. Ultimately, the program offers a blueprint for reimagining child welfare through the lens of equity, cultural humility, and child-centered care—demonstrating that when systems honor identity and humanity, child outcomes improve and systemic disparities begin to diminish.
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Process
Step 1: Explore the Program
Review Our House components:
Culturally affirming group home model
location in Chesapeake and Norfolk,VA
Staff: Interns, personal care aides, volunteers
NTDC(National training and development curriculum) integration
Government and grant based funding
Reflect on the questions:
How does cultural incompetence among caregivers contribute to placement instability and trauma?
How does each component respect children’s cultural identity and human rights?
How does the program address systemic inequalities in foster care?
Step 2: Review the Literature and connect social work values
Read excerpts from the following studies included in Our House’s literature review:
- Price et al. (2008) – Effects of Foster Parent Training on Placement Changes
- Johnson & Ramirez (2019) – Transcultural Roots: Foster Parent Training and Support
- Martin, Hughes & Allen (2020) – Foster Parent Training, Retention, and Satisfaction
- Parker (2017) – Assessing Cultural Receptivity in Fostering
- National Training and Development Curriculum Review Group (2023) – National Training and Development Curriculum for Foster Parents
- Stevens & Hall (2024) – Critical Review of Foster Care Programs
- Identify Social wok values reflected in the program(NASW code of Ethics) dignity and worth of person, integrity, social justice, importance of human relationships
Step 3: Analyze the Proposal
Examine the Our House program’s mission and components:
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ MACRO │
│ │
│ • Government & grant-based │
│ funding │
│ • Policy advocacy for │
│ cultural competence │
│ • NTDC integration │
│ │
│ Human Rights/Social Justice:│
│ - Equitable access │
│ - Systemic reform │
│ - Protection of cultural │
│ identity │
└───────────────┬─────────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ MEZZO │
│ │
│ • Staff: interns, CPAs, │
│ volunteers │
│ • Community partnerships │
│ • Facility-based care │
│ │
│ Human Rights/Social Justice:│
│ - Community capacity │
│ - Cultural connections │
│ - Safe, affirming │
│ environments │
└───────────────┬─────────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ MICRO │
│ │
│ • Direct caregiving & │
│ trauma-informed care │
│ • Child-centered activities │
│ • Individualized cultural │
│ genograms & assessments │
│ │
│ Human Rights/Social Justice:│
│ - Safety & belonging │
│ - Identity affirmation │
│ - Emotional well-being │
└─────────────────────────────┘
Step 4:
Cultural-competence training should be mandated for all foster care providers because children enter the system with diverse racial, cultural, and trauma histories that require informed, sensitive, and bias-aware care. Without standardized training, disparities in treatment, placement stability, and permanency outcomes for Black and Brown children continue to widen. Programs like Our House reduce these racial disparities by embedding culturally affirming practices, trauma-informed care, and NTDC-based training into everyday operations, ensuring that youth feel seen, respected, and connected to their identities. Additionally, locating the program within the communities most affected by foster care involvement helps maintain family and school continuity, further promoting stability and equity. However, implementing this model nationwide may face barriers such as inconsistent funding streams, political resistance to equity-focused reforms, and difficulty maintaining high-quality training across states. These challenges can be addressed by federal policy support, partnerships with universities, grant-funded training initiatives, and continuous monitoring to ensure fidelity to cultural-competence standards.
Step 5: Create Your Final Product
Issue / Social Injustice
Black and Brown children are disproportionately represented in foster care and often experience multiple placement disruptions, emotional trauma, and loss of cultural identity. Traditional foster care systems frequently fail to provide culturally competent care, which contributes to inequitable outcomes in placement stability, emotional well-being, and long-term development. This systemic inequity represents a violation of children’s human rights and underscores the need for culturally responsive interventions.
Policy Solution / Program Overview
Our House is a group home model located in Chesapeake and Norfolk, Virginia, designed to address these disparities through:
Culturally affirming practices that respect children’s racial, ethnic, and linguistic identities.
Trauma-informed, NTDC-based training for all staff, including interns, personal care aides, and volunteers.
Community integration to maintain family, school, and cultural connections.
Diversified funding strategies, including government contracts and grants, to ensure sustainability.
Evidence of Effectiveness
Foster parents trained in cultural competence experience higher placement stability and retention (Price et al., 2008; Martin et al., 2020).
Children in culturally affirming care show improved attachment, emotional regulation, and academic outcomes (Johnson & Ramirez, 2019; Parker, 2017).
Standardized NTDC training creates consistent, evidence-based approaches that reduce racial disparities and improve overall child welfare outcomes (NTDC Review Group, 2023; Stevens & Hall, 2024).
Potential Challenges
Funding gaps during program start-up or expansion.
Political resistance to equity-focused reforms.
Maintaining training consistency across multiple states and care settings.
Mitigation Strategies:
Utilize phased implementation with grant support and Title IV-E reimbursement.
Build stakeholder buy-in with data demonstrating improved child outcomes.
Establish fidelity monitoring, coaching, and ongoing professional development to maintain program quality.
Policy Recommendations
1. Mandate cultural-competence training for all foster care providers nationwide.
2. Replicate the Our House model in high-need communities, adapting to local cultural contexts.
3. Integrate program evaluation and monitoring to support continuous improvement and inform federal child welfare policy.
Will all be accomplished by adopting the Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act
https://dcyf.mn.gov/partners-and-providers/child-safety-and-permanency/MAAFPCWDA
Evaluation
- Evaluation
You will be assessed on the following rubric:
Criteria Excellent (6 pts) Good (5 pts) Acceptable (3 pts) Needs Improvement (1 pt)
Comprehension: 1. Demonstrates deep understanding of cultural competence and foster care systems 2. Demonstrates good understanding with some insight 3.Shows basic understanding of key ideas 4. Limited understanding or incomplete analysis
Critical Thinking: 1.Provides insightful, evidence-based evaluation and reasoning 2.Demonstrates critical thought with some original ideas 3.Some analysis with minimal evaluation 4.Descriptive or opinion-based only
Creativity & Organization: Clear, visually engaging, and logically structured product Well-organized with minor lapses Adequate structure with limited creativity Disorganized or unclear
Policy Application: 1.ensure realistic and well-supported policy recommendations Offers sound recommendations 2.Offers some relevant recommendations 3.Recommendations unclear or unrealistic
Total Possible Points: 30
Conclusion
The Our House WebQuest challenges you to think critically about how social work practice, policy, and research intersect to uphold human rights in child welfare.
By understanding the role of cultural competence, you become an advocate for equity and justice—ensuring that every child, regardless of race or background, grows up in a home where they feel safe, valued, and culturally affirmed.
As social workers, we are not only service providers—we are change agents, and initiatives like Our House exemplify how values-driven, evidence-based practice can transform systems from the inside out.
Credits
Johnson, L., & Ramirez, T. (2019). Transcultural roots: Foster parent training and support. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 28(4), 789–803.
Martin, D., Hughes, K., & Allen, P. (2020). Foster parent training, retention, and satisfaction. Children and Youth Services Review, 112, 104904.
National Training and Development Curriculum Review Group. (2023). National training and development curriculum for foster and adoptive parents: A systematic review. Child Welfare, 101(3), 245–266.
Parker, S. (2017). Assessing cultural receptivity in fostering (Doctoral dissertation). ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
Price, J. M., Chamberlain, P., Landsverk, J., Reid, J. B., Leve, L. D., & Laurent, H. (2008). Effects of a foster parent training intervention on placement changes of children in foster care. Child Maltreatment, 13(1), 64–75.
Stevens, R., & Hall, J. (2024). Systematic literature review of the evaluation of foster care programs. Journal of Social Service Research, 50(2), 188–204.
Teacher Page
In the U.S. foster care system, children of color—especially Black and Brown youth—face unique challenges due to cultural incompetence among foster parents. These challenges can lead to emotional distress, identity loss, and multiple placement disruptions.
Research shows that culturally competent care—care that understands, respects, and affirms a child’s racial and cultural identity—can improve placement stability, emotional well-being, and caregiver retention (Price et al., 2008; Johnson & Ramirez, 2019).
This WebQuest invites you to explore how a culturally responsive group home called “Our House” could transform foster care by addressing social injustice and promoting human rights in child welfare.